DORIAN ORTIZ

Early 20th-century coinage, apparently invented by Oscar Wilde, as no evidence has been found of its existence before he used it for the central character in The Portrait of Dorian Gray (1891). Dorian Gray is a dissolute rake who retains unblemished youthful good looks; in the attic of his home is a portrait which does his ageing for him, gradually acquiring all the outward marks of his depravity. This macabre background has not deterred parents from occasionally bestowing the name on their children. Wilde probably took the name from Late Latin Dorianus, from Greek Dōrieus, denoting a member of the Greek-speaking people who settled in the Peloponnese in pre-classical times. Dorian would thus be a masculine version of Doris. It may have been selected occasionally by admirers of ancient Sparta and its militaristic institutions, since the Spartans were of Dorian stock.

Spanish: patronymic from the Basque personal name Orti (Latin Fortunius).